1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens barrel and an image pickup device therefor and, more particularly, to a lens barrel provided with a flexible printed circuit board electrically connecting with an image pickup device and to the image pickup device therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flexible printed circuit boards have been used as a means for establishing an electrical connection between an electrically driven unit in a lens barrel supporting a photographic lens used in an image pickup device (camera) and a camera body. Various techniques have been proposed for lens barrels electrically connected to camera bodies through the above-described flexible printed circuit boards (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 7-181360 (FIG. 1 and other figures).
FIG. 7 is a sectional view showing a configuration of a lens barrel according to an example of an art related to the present invention.
Referring to FIG. 7, a lens barrel 700 disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 7-181360 is attached to a camera body 101 and comprises lenses L1 to L4, electric component parts 102 to 104, flexible printed circuit boards (hereinafter referred to as “FPCs”) 105 and 106. The FPCs 105 and 106 are guided by being bent along a guide member 107, with their bent portions pinched and fixed with a clip member 108 on the bending guide member 107.
According to the related art disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 7-181360, there is a need to provide the bending guide member 107 and the clip member 108 in the lens barrel 700 for the purpose of guiding the FPCs. There are, therefore, problems that the number of component parts and the outer diameter of the lens barrel 700 are increased.
Because of the structure in which the FPC 105 is folded several times, there is a need to set the length of the FPC 105 to a value much larger than the distance through which the electric component (electrically driven unit) is moved. This leads to an increase in material cost of the FPC 105 and also affects the electrical characteristics of the FPC 105 to cause, for example, an increase in resistance of the conductor in the FPC 105.